When Patrick asked if I wanted to go to the Channel Islands to photograph foxes the size of my smallest cat to celebrate our birthdays, I couldn’t possibly say no.

The Channel Islands are home to numerous endemic species of plant and animal life. The island fox is related to the mainland gray fox, but weighs only 4-5 pounds and is really, actually, unbelievably, the size of a house cat. They are really barely the size of my small girl cat who weighs 8-9 pounds depending on if she has pooped yet that day.

Two island foxes in the campground; Patrick for scale.

Logistics

Channel Islands National Park is made up of a few islands. We chose to visit Santa Cruz Island because it was the only one open for visitors at the time of year we wanted to go (January).

Getting there was easy! We booked a ferry with Island Packers, the official park transportation provider.

You can totally do a day trip to the island, but we wanted more time so we decided to camp. We reserved a site at the Scorpion Canyon Campground. In January, they are really easy to book! Tons of availability. The campground is maybe a half mile walk from the dock; a ranger called it “backpacking lite”. We did use our backpacking gear, but some other campers brought roller bags, big plastic totes, etc, and managed okay. Personally, I think backpacking gear is the move.

(You do need to have a camping permit to book on a ferry if your return date is not the same as your departure date so you have to make sure there is room on the ferry you want, then book your campsite, then immediately go back and book your ferry.)

There are opportunities for wildlife viewing on the ferry, too! They will even try to find pods of dolphins to observe along the way.

A flock of Brown Pelicans seen from the ferry.

Finding island foxes

You could stay at the campground the entire time and see island foxes. Campers are required to store food in the provided fox-proof “fox boxes”; literally bear boxes, but the largest terrestrial mammal on the island is the island fox. Even so, foxes will come to the campground hoping to get lucky.

We did not stay at the campground the entire time. We saw a fox near the visitor’s center, as well as one at Smuggler’s Cove and several on the Scorpion Canyon Loop hike.

Basically, anywhere you go, you should see foxes. We saw them at all times of day, too. The ones on the Scorpion Canyon Loop came out at sunset, but all our other sightings were at random times throughout the day. This did mean we were dealing with harsh light conditions quite often, but I’d rather that than see less wildlife!

Favorite encounter

There was a pair of foxes that would come to the campground together when there weren’t many people around. We were lucky to see them at least twice. Some of my absolute favorite photos from the trip are the ones of them grooming each other.

One of them had distinctive floppy ears, too. So cute!!